If you don't already know, there is a ballot measure in Maine that allows people to give a full ranking on their candidates to state offices and for US Congress. The purpose of ranking the candidates is to find out who does the best head-to-head. Maine is a particularly interesting case because they have strong Independent candidates. That means when they go vote, they always run into vote splitting and the spoiler effect. So they're pretty likely to pass this.
"Ranked Choice Voting" is what people like calling Instant Runoff Voting because apparently the word "runoff" offends them. IRV is why my county makes me choose between two Republicans for auditor.
How many candidates are running for auditor? Yeah I think they should call it a ranked choice ballot. The names are kind of interesting. I recently learned that the system in Maine used to require runoffs if there was no majority winner for an office but in the mid-eighteen hundreds the Constitution was amended so that they wouldn't have to do the run off. Instead they would just go with whoever got the plurality. And that's how we ended up calling what we have now the plurality system or plurality voting. Now most people have no idea what plurality means and it's really a terrible name if you want to try to talk to people about voting reform. I would even like the name single choice voting better. And maybe that's why people use the name right choice voting. Here is a link about Maine's constitution
Two. And honestly? I've voted for Republican Secretaries of State like six times and they all seem to have done just fine. Two of them ended up running credible, respectable, rancor-free races for governor that were close but democratic in the end. I mean, the democratic caucus in WA isn't even binding. There's some whackiness.